South East Development Bill scales first reading in Senate

A Bill seeking to establish the South East Development Commission (SEDC) on Wednesday scaled first reading in Senate. The SEDC bill was re-introduced by the 9th Senate because it was sometime passed by 8th Senate but was not signed into law by the President.

The Bill, which is sponsored by Stella Oduah (PDP, Anambra North), seeks to establish a governing board for the commission. The board will consist of one person from each of the states that form south-eastern geopolitical zone in the country.

Specifically, the bill seeks to provide adequate funding for the commission which can be derived from 10% of the total monthly statutory allocation of the member states of the commission, to be deducted from the federation account.

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Meanwhile, a bill to rename the Federal University of Technology Yola (FUT) was on Wednesday considered by the Senate.  The bill seeks to rename FUT to Modibo Adama University and it is sponsored by Senator Aishatu Dahiru (Adamawa Central).

The university was established in 1981 as and named Federal University of Technology.

“The University’s inherent statutory limitation exposed it to a lot of disadvantages – making it impossible to meet the needs of its historic state.”

“According to statistics from the universities, there has been a forty percent drop rate in female enrolment in the University following the reversal to core technology programmes.

“This has greatly undermined the Federal Government’s efforts in mainstreaming the girl-child education especially in the North East region,” Dahiru said.